Trope lists for my own works and characters

So, I have multiple Works-in-Progress that I am, well, working on whenever I get time and have some idea to add. Over time, I had the bright idea of making a list of tropes that I plan to implement in said works and/or the characters (both original and non-original) that would feature in them - sort of like "canonical" trope lists to be put on as-of-yet-nonexistent main articles and character sheets for said works. This way, I can keep track of what I at least generally want from the works/characters, even if I can't put it to proper detailed descriptions yet.

To make a long story short, the Trope Overdosed nature of most of the works (including pretty all the major characters involved) led me to seek ways to organize my overly long trope lists. I eventually decided to adopt an organizational scheme inspired by the ones that are currently implemented for the Neon Genesis Evangelion main article and Dissidia Final Fantasy's character sheets.

Main articles:

• Setting: settings, organizations, and related tropes.
• Characters: characterization tropes (and related tropes) that are either common to a lot of cast members or are not associated with a specific character.
• Narrative: narrative devices, plots, and other narrative tropes that don't fall under any other category.
• Gameplay: game tropes.
• Themes: motifs and central themes.
• Meta: Meta-Concepts and Trope Tropes.

Character sheet profiles:

• General: Anything that doesn't fit any of the categories below.
• Design and Costumes: Personal Appearance Tropes.
• Powers and Combat: Magic and Powers and Combat Tropes.
• Gameplay: Again, game tropes.
• Special categories as necessary (e.g. if the character appears in two or more installments, and some of his/her tropes are specific to each one)

Now, in spite of this making the trope lists a lot easier to search, it also comes with its own problems. Here is a sample:

1. What if a trope qualifies for two or more categories at once? For example, Clothes Make the Superman are technically both a Costume Trope and a Stock Superpower.
2. If a character is, for example, a Gender Bender, then where should the Gender Bender entry? One could make a case for it going under Powers and Combat if the character has a Voluntary Shapeshifting power and Gender Bending is one possible application of it, but...
   1. If s/he has a lot of tropes that only apply to his/her genderbent form, then where do they go? Should I make, for example, a "Design and Costumes (female)" category for female Personal Appearance Tropes? What if his/her genderbent form is associated with several "general" tropes?
3. Tropes that revolve around in-universe reactions from other characters, like Chick Magnet and Hello Nurse... Which category would they fall under?

That said, I am open to any suggestions about additional categories to the above scheme.

PS: On a tangential note to the Gender Bender question, does being able to transform into a hermaphrodite count as Gender Bender?

edited 18th Jul '11 2:17:37 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

If this is for your refference, then you need to do this in the wy that's most convenient to you. Once your works are available and have trope pages, they can be reorganised by the public.

Yeah, I know, but it doesn't hurt to get some advice.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

If it works and you find it convenient, what's the problem here? Write up those separate pages on GoogleDocs. Worry about trope-related things and having a works page when you get something written.

Probably not, but does it matter at this point?

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

Marq, you're the only person who's going to see it. Making it more accessable to other people is pointless. As for making it more accessable to you, that depends entirely uppon what works for you, which we don't know. Can't really help with that. You're already much more organised than I am (though I'm not a good example).

There is such a thing as learning from other people's own experiences and knowledge, and adapting what you learned to your own particular circumstances.

I'm trying to address a few deficiencies that I've detected in my current scheme; and as the saying says, "two heads are better than one". Just because a solution works doesn't mean that it's the ideal/best one, or that it cannot be improved.

To reiterate, I'm using these trope lists to make it easier for me to remember what I want from the characters if I am stumped at writing an actual description of it. They probably contain considerably more stuff than what a real TV Tropes trope list on them would have, but that's beside the point.

Uh, yeah. It would help me where to best put the hermaphrodite entry on some of my characters. I like being generally consistent with TV Tropes conventions unless there's something clearly wrong with them, you see.

Hey now, don't look so down on your ability. You should look at the bright side!

edited 18th Jul '11 2:12:37 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Once upon a time, I had an entry for my own work in Darth Wiki's Unpublished Works index. Now that I'm spending more time with my 3DS browser than an actual computer (you can't edit without the 3DS's text input thing blanking everything it couldn't show) I couldn't keep those pages up to date anymore, so I moved the source text to GoogleDocs and cutlisted every last one of my work's pages and subpages.

You seem way too worried about tropes and playing them to the letter. There was once a time when I did that, too. But when I backed away from this website and began to take a good look at my world and characters, I realized that they were unoriginal and made no fucking sense.

From that point on, I let everything develop on its own as it came to me. I no longer care if something fits a certain trope or not because in the end, the story is all that really matters.

So with that said, it's time for my favorite piece of advice- Works exhibit tropes, not the other way around.

edited 18th Jul '11 7:19:47 PM by CrystalGlacia

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

Hear hear. This is an idea I think a lot of people on this forum need to hear, judging by all the threads that begin by describing their author's work entirely in terms of tropes. Although this is really a conversation for another thread.

That said, I am making a tropes page for my (finished) comics, because while I don't try and use tropes deliberately, I sure used a heck of a lot of them, and because it's just fun to trope my own works. But it's something I'll do only after I finish said works, not before.

Ah....good times. Good times.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Perhaps I should have clarified that while I use tropes as building blocks to develop my characters around, I don't limit myself to them. And there is at least one benefit of the whole "make a list of applicable tropes while making the draft" thing: If I find that a trope's definition is too narrow to apply to my character(s)/work(s), but I could easily imagine similar examples to my character(s)/work(s) in question, I always make a point of taking the issue to either Trope Talk for discussing the boundaries of the trope, or TRS if I believe that there's a significant problem with the definition/description/name.

A few times, I even went as far as go to YKTTW when I realized that a trait/concept/etc. that applies to my character(s) is tropable, and (usually) I have already seen it a million times before, but nobody thought to make it yet. That's how I came up with Chest of Medals, Sex God, United Nations Is a Superpower, and Vampiric Draining.

edited 19th Jul '11 2:15:06 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

When I had my works pages, I had the main page, and the character sheet. That's all. Since I'm writing a novel, my scheme may not work for you.

If that entire scheme you listed above does what you want it to do and is what you prefer, what's the problem here? The important thing is that you're organizing your stuff for the purpose of consistency and reference. It's not our place to tell you how to do it, it's yours.

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

<sigh> Like I said, I noted that there are some deficiencies in my scheme, some of which I have already mentioned in the OP via examples:

And just because you think your scheme may not work for me doesn't mean that it's true, or that I can't get an idea from it that would help me. It may not be your place to tell me what to do, as you have said, but it is well within your right to give me as much helpful advice as you can, and/or try to come up with answers to questions that I am seeking answers to.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Well Marq, as I said, I'm very unorganised, however, I can try giving you an idea based on other things that I've done. First of all, don't use tropes, use ideas, which can be tropes, combinations of tropes or pretty much anything. Next, write down the basic premise. Following that, write down the ideas that spring from that premise, connecting them via lines. Then connect the related ideas and write down the ideas that spring from those. etc.

Marq, you asked my advice but I'm not sure what to say. I think you got some good ideas for organizing the articles, alright, but at the same time, I think you should try to take it easy.

No organization you come up with, no matter how complex it is, is gonna be perfect. Not to mention something too complicated might make things only worse and less pleasing for a reader.

So just do what you can or feel like and don't worry so much for making mistakes. Someone might pick them up after you've done your part, after all.

Also, for the record, I think that for a fighting game like Dissidia, Gameplay and Combat Tropes would have to go hand in hand, that's why I've always had them together, because there's no gameplay element outside of that.

... Maybe I have been worrying myself too much about whether or not to make adjustments to my organization.

Ah... My decision to split them was because I intended for this organizational model to be a general one, meaning that it would encompass "normal" writings as well as imaginary/hypothetical games. Special cases might of course mandante adapting the original model to better fit the work's needs.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.